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> Results: NCAA Gamebreaker 2004
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NCAA Gamebreaker 2004 is the current version of 989 Sports' college football game. In gameplay and graphics, it is primarily an incremental change. However, there are a number of significant leaps forward in extras that were put in to enhance the game. The 2004 version included internet play, allows use of the headset for voice-activation controls, and also sports a new athletic director mode. Unfortunately, other than the athletic director mode, the extras just don't quite add as much to the game as one would hope. For the most part, the basic football gameplay looks and feels the same. The play menus are now slightly different. It requires a little bit of time to get used to looking up favorite plays, but there are also some new advantages. One nice feature is a "situational" playbook that can be quickly reached and gives a player a few options based on their field position and downs. Passing and running both work fairly well and can be tuned by adjusting the defensive AI in the system settings.  There are several modes of play that go beyond basic one-off games, playoffs, seasons, and tournaments. Two of the main ones include a career mode and a new athletic director mode. The career mode is not new, but is slightly refined to make things easier. Choose an open coaching position to accept and lead your team to victory. After each season, you are promoted or can choose to try and join a different team to advance your coaching career goals. While very little is new in this mode, I did notice in particular the menus for recruiting players has been much improved. You no longer have wait to cycle through player's college preferences, a player's top 3 preferences are now listed all on one screen. The athletic director mode is similar, but focuses on building a college team from the ground up. You can choose jerseys, recruit players, make playbooks, and can even create walk-on players for your team. It's really a variation on the career mode, but gives the gamer even more control over the team. Its great to see internet play added into the game. With the use of a PS2 internet adaptor, you can play games against other humans online and even keep track of your stats. An extremely nice addition is the ability to download statistics for all the college teams as the season progresses. This keeps all the teams in Gamebreaker 2004 up to date, even week-to-week. You can also set up your online account to register you as a fan of a particular NCAA team. Then you can go on and compete to try to improve your chosen school's online ranking by winning online games. Unfortunately, since college football is more of a niche market than the NFL console titles, and since Gamebreaker doesn't have as large of a following, it is difficult to find other people to play against. In my review it was common to log into the online chatrooms and fail to find an opponent after 10 or 15 minutes of searching. One final interesting addition to the game is the use of the PS2 headset to allow voice activation control. This feature works great, the voice recognition is good and doesn't make mistakes. However, to use the feature, you must press and hold a button (R2 I believe) to activate it, the screen will show a signal in the upper corner to indicate the command was interpreted correctly. Since you have to press a button to get the voice activation to work, itﾒs one more button to remember as you play the game. Its great for playing around with. You can call hike, call plays, and even call for changes in blocking on the fly. With a fair bit of practice, you can get all the signals to work, but aside from the cool factor, the feature probably won't help you be a better game player. One little caveat, the voice recognition system is great and never makes a mistake, but if you give it a command that doesn't exist, it will try to turn that into a command it does recognize. If you "call pass long" instead of a "call long pass" (the correct code) the game just might set up a field goal play, requiring you to call a timeout just to reset your team. Overall, the game has new features and more polish in some areas than previous years. However, while the new features are implemented well, they end up sounding much cooler in theory than they end up in practice. Kid Factor: NCAA GameBreaker 2004 is about as kid-friendly as you would expect a college football game to be. There are the obligatory cheerleaders here and there, but nothing over-the-top. The game style and play is pretty standard with no ultra-violence thrown in. Some of the more complex elements of the game, like penalties and such, can be turned on and off for beginners. There is no innate handicapping mode other than each team's abilities. For multiplayer play amongst families, it is pretty easy to set up ongoing tournaments so that each player can take his or her team through the season, playing other family members live whenever their teams happen to be scheduled. The headset voice microphone is actually somewhat tricky to use, but might be easier for a younger pup to pick up and learn than it was for an old dog like myself. (Note: The headset can only be used in one-player modes.) Finally, since the game can connect to the Internet if you have an Internet adaptor, be cautious about what is discussed in any chatroom. This did not look like it would be a problem, but standard Internet cautions apply. Reviewer Recommended Ages: 10+ Genre: Strategy ESRB Rating: E for Everyone Producer: 989 Studios Developer: Sony Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: NCAA Gamebreaker 2004 |
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